Isuppose this is what happens when you ask a child to do a man’s work. I speak, of course, of Justin Trudeau’s naïve idea that not calling Liberal senators Liberals — not calling a spade a spade — is a significant step toward Senate reform.
Even more disappointing for those who think the place needs reforming must be the Liberal leader’s apparent belief that senators would be better for the country if they were chosen by a committee of elitists rather than someone who has been elected by Canadians to run the country.
Perhaps Trudeau, still wet behind his years, thinks his bold extra-constitutional gambit is worthy of the son and heir of a prime minister who reshaped the Constitution of a nation, but had the common sense to leave the Senate alone.
It’s not. And Trudeau is in danger of going down in history as a tinker.
There was the inevitable whining last week by columnists who added up provincial seats in both houses of Parliament and found the numbers assigned to the West — and Ontario, for Pete’s sake — wanting.
Nothing new in that. But somehow de-Liberalizing senators was seen to reduce whatever clout they had and thus the clout of parts of the country basking in alienation.
Silly. Consider B.C.’s Liberal senators: Has anyone heard anything from Larry Campbell lately? Can anyone imagine Mobina Jaffer’s clout?
It’s sad that so many in the media filtering what happens on Parliament Hill for our edification found Trudeau’s actions bold, courageous and an earnest of his political maturity, at last.
The studied wisdom of the editorial board of the Globe and Mail was more cautious: Trudeau’s was both more and less of a “partly good” idea.
And I don’t know how those in the press gallery were caught napping by what they called his bombshell. The idea of kicking senators out of party caucuses was floating around in the corridors of power in Ottawa when I was roaming them 40 years ago.
Preston Manning, the former Reform leader, noted that if the Liberals are so keen on reducing the partisanship and patronage in the Senate, they’ve had more than 140 years to bring in a reform bill.
Trudeau identified partisanship and patronage Wednesday as the “central problems” under which the Senate is “suffering.” I suppose that means the expense scandals, which might involve suddenly independent ex-Liberals when audits are completed, are less important than a lot of people seem to think.
The Liberal leader said senators “now must consider not what’s best for their country or their regions, but what’s best for their party.” Well, as Robert MacGregor Dawson pointed out 50 years ago, it was always accepted by the fathers of Confederation that cabinets would appoint senators for political reasons, though they never expected “party gratitude” to be so dominant a motive.
It became the habit for leaders “to wring party workers dry” and then when in government to reward them “by translation to a higher and more restful sphere of usefulness” in the Senate.
Some of the old dears whom I saw shuffling down the corridor to the parliamentary restaurant or snoozing in the Red Chamber obviously needed rest. But there were, and are still, others fit enough for active party service, as Mike Duffy in his enthusiastic way has shown.
I don’t see how partisan interests can be worse in our shaky form of democracy than other interests such as banking or business that senators are on the lookout for, or the fondness for tokenism in appointments made to satisfy regions, racial minorities and gender balance.
By proposing to replace prime-ministerial appointees with “thoughtful individuals representing the varied values, perspectives and identities” of the country chosen by a public process, Trudeau wants to de-politicize a deliberately designed political institution.
How will this process determine that candidates have no political leanings? How, indeed, will it identify individuals who are thoughtful?
The Senate’s only function is political. It’s not a place designed to represent farmers, oilmen or Cirque du Soleil performers, or those who put out to sea in left-handed spokeshavers’ coracles.
